Idiot
by filkertom
Summary: Ron Weasley? What had Hermione been thinking?


Idiot.

I was an idiot.

What could I have possibly been thinking? Oh, wait, I can tell you that. I was thinking Ron was getting fairly good looking. Tall, muscular, great smile. I was thinking Ron made me laugh, when he wasn't making me scream in frustration.

I was thinking Harry fancied Ginny.

I wasn't thinking the little bint would have the audacity to use an _Amortentia_ potion to make herself more attractive to Harry. Finding that out was a very, very bad day for all concerned.

I wasn't thinking of Harry's, or my own, best interest regarding that stupid book belonging to the stupid Half Blood Prince. (What is it with Snape and Riddle and any other Dark wizards who insist on making up scary fake names? Any twelve-year-old playing Dungeons and Dragons can do that.)

I wasn't thinking that Ron might consider me his "dream girl" solely because he couldn't imagine anyone else putting up with him. Not that he could imagine me putting up with him, but he figured there would be a lot of kissing and making up.

I wasn't thinking he had a physical preference for, bluntly, blonde girls with big breasts.

And I wasn't thinking at all regarding Ron's well-known disdain of my first love: reading.

The man doesn't own a single book.

Not one. He's got some Quidditch magazines at any given point, but his one true talent at studying only relates to Quidditch statistics. He memorizes them and never has to look at them again. Certainly he'd never read for the sake of recreation, and absolutely not to learn anything outside of doing assignments.

_My_ books, my reading, he has always made fun of. Always demeaned and diminished. And, often in the same breath as thanking me for something, a spell or a fact or a clue, that saved his arse, a spell or fact or clue I learned by reading.

How could I miss that? How could I not think of that? Or any of the other things.

I wasn't thinking about how much Harry needed me - needed us. He was so alone, and Ron and I abandoned him during sixth year.

I wasn't thinking of how kind Harry was to me, even at the worst times.

I wasn't thinking of how handsome he'd grown. Very bad-boy looks. It was all the hair, and the intensity of those damned gorgeous eyes. And all the Quidditch muscle didn't hurt.

I wasn't thinking of Ron's stupid jealous streak. My god, he was still jealous of Harry even when Harry was losing people right and left. Did he not remember his own vision in the Mirror of Erised? He got that. In fifth year. Prefect if not Head Boy; Quidditch champion. The roar of the crowd. The whole thing. He got his heart's desire.

I never told them mine.

They didn't even know I went to look.

Very simple, really: Harry Potter, and me, and our children. Living safe and free and happy, with no Dark Lord or sadistic Potions Master or horrible Ministry liaison or anybody else who could darken our world.

I didn't believe it. I was far too young to believe it.

Idiot.

And there was one thing I wasn't thinking most of all: I wasn't thinking that Harry felt anything for me. How could I? How could he? He liked pretty, athletic types - Cho, Ginny. I despised Quidditch. I didn't think of myself as pretty.

I wasn't thinking of the look on his face at the Yule Ball.

Argh. The Yule Ball. Ron took every possible negative about that whole situation to heart for _weeks_. Harry suffered through, and at least made an attempt to make the best of it. Even though the Patils didn't forgive them for quite awhile.

Goodness knows I still haven't forgiven Ron.

And so I have no idea how I could've possibly let things get to the point where Ron and I were together.

Not that we were for long. I wanted to help Harry. I wanted Ron to want to help. He wanted to snog. More, he wanted to snog like he'd snogged with Lavender.

He wanted some of the other things he'd got from Lavender.

And he didn't want to hear about Harry.

That shocked me. I suppose it shouldn't have - who wants to hear your girlfriend talk incessantly about some other boy? But it was Harry.

And that's when I began to truly realize what an idiot I'd been.

Ron was nice to hug. Ron kissed decently well, if aggressively. Ron thought I was all right, for a girl.

But Ron was in the way of what I did and felt for Harry.

And so we began to fight even more.

Not a good medium for romance, that.

Which led to tonight.

Ron and I had a huge shouting match. Over biscuits.

Biscuits.

He had three chocolate biscuits and two raspberry, and he devoured them and then grabbed my single raspberry one without thinking or asking or anything. And I shouted, "RON!" just as his mouth was open and full of my biscuit, at the most revolting possible moment, and he looked so blankly confused as to why I might possibly be yelling at him that I got even angrier. And I called him a pig and said he never thought of anybody or anything except his stomach and he actually said, "I didn't mean it," and then he said he'd call for one of the house elves to bring more and I said that wasn't the bloody point.

And then he clutched at his chest and rolled his eyes and said he was so bloody sorry he oppressed the bloody house elves by asking them to do their bloody jobs, and I shouted that they were more than just slaves to bring him his bloody food, and he said, "All this for a bloody biscuit? What are you going to be like when we're married?" And I'm pretty sure I just stared at him, mouth hanging open nearly as unattractively as his had been, for a full ten seconds before I snarled, "In your dreams," and got up and stormed out.

And then I went looking for Harry.

I didn't realize I was. But as soon as I found myself in front of his door, I pounded on it desperately, and fell sobbing into his arms when he opened it.

He held me, stroking my hair and making little _shh_ noises, while I cried my heart out. Cried it free of Ron.

I thought all that sorrow would leave some rage behind, so I could stalk back and forth and rattle off numerous plans for What Precisely To Do About The Unfortunate Mr. Weasley. But it emptied me out instead. I was exhausted, and hollow, and hurt.

Which is why Harry's kiss startled me so.

It wasn't much of a kiss, really. He touched his lips to my cheek in mid-comfort, and again, and then to the corner of my mouth. And he pulled away suddenly, not completely but enough to look me in the face, his eyes huge with the shock of what he'd just done.

And I looked at him and I wanted him so badly.

And so I wasn't thinking when I kissed him full on the mouth.

And then after that, neither of us did much thinking at all.

I may be an idiot... but I can be taught.


End file.
